Freedom Seekers

Reviews / Votes

'Expertly drawing upon seminal works and recent advances in secondary scholarship, and using a rich array of primary sources, Pargas has crafted an engaging and timely contribution to the historical literature on fugitive slaves. Masterfully unveiling the antebellum landscapes confronting freedom seekers, he captures details and nuances that shaped decisions of courageous men and women navigating the contradiction of slavery in an American republic founded upon the principle of liberty. He adeptly places fugitive slaves at the very center of the American narrative and geopolitics of the North American continent.' Gordon S. Barker, author of Fugitive Slaves and the Unfinished American Revolution 'Damian Pargas has written a masterful, deeply researched study of enslaved flight in the Age of the Revolution. The first study to encompass fully North American dimensions of enslaved flight, his book is a must-read for all early American historians. While elevating scholarly discussion, the book is beautifully written and constructed, making it valuable for classroom use at any university level.' Graham Russell Gao Hodges, Colgate University and author of David Ruggles: A Radical Black Abolitionist and the Underground Railroad in New York City 'Finally, we have a book that frees fugitive slave studies from the trappings of conventional national and regional frameworks. Damian Pargas' attention to various spaces of liberty as a continental phenomenon transforms our understanding of slavery and freedom in nineteenth century North America. The result is a paradigm-shifter.' Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie, author of Rebellious Passage: The Creole Revolt and America's Coastal Slave Trade